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White House: EpiPen Price Spike Was Corporate Decision, Not Because of Obamacare

August 26, 2016

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Friday that the price spike in EpiPens by the Mylan company was due to corporate decisions, not the president's health care law.

Earnest said that while he had not seen reports of the earnings call he knew that Mylan made the conscious decision to increase the price. Mylan CEO Heather Bresch is the daughter of Obamacare supporter Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W. Va.) and has placed blame for the more than 400 percent increase in the EpiPen's price on a "broken" health care system.

"That based on the news reports that I've seen, the company made a specific decision to jack up the price," Earnest said. "It is hard to try to deflect the blame for the increase in price to anything else, including Obamacare."

Business Insider reported that a majority of Americans are on a high-deductible plan and that a majority of those that are enrolled in Obamacare health care exchanges also have high-deductible plans.

"However, as the health insurance environment has evolved, driven by the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, patients and families enrolled in high deductible health insurance plans, who are uninsured, or who pay cash at the pharmacy, have faced higher costs for their medicine," Mylan said in a statement.

Bresch took in $19 million salary in 2015 and argued in the earnings call that customers who need the allergy injector are only noticing the price because they are paying out-of-pocket. After massive public backlash, Mylan announced it would offer a $300 rebate card to help offset the out-of-pocket cost. Customers would need to seek out the card themselves and the card only covers those who currently have insurance.

The Free Beacon also reported that by 2017 there will only be one insurance company offering health care plans in Obamacare exchanges. Aetna, Humana, and UnitedHealth have already announced their intentions of leaving the health care co-ops by 2017.